Eywa's stepchildren II: Crossing the shadow line
by JediKnightMarina55
Summary: Two years after leaving, a man comes back to Pandora. His life has changed. Someone's with him, someone who could radically change the story Gabriel Locke is telling. Will he choose the right ending, as he crosses the line between childhood and adulthood?
1. Prologue

**_The title of the story is a tribute to Joseph Conrad's novel "The Shadow Line", and obviously Avatar belongs to James Cameron, and I'm really glad such a man gave us another adventure to dream._**

**_Anyway, I own the Locke twins, Thomas and Michael, Captain Karloff and his children, Lieutenant Alan "Karate Kid" Doyle, Professor Seneca, the Martins and all the characters who didn't appear in the movie._**

**_If you haven't read "Eywa's stepchildren", this will look like a mess. So look for that fanfiction and read it first!

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_**

_To my best friend/honoris causa brother Luca... __because friends and siblings always come back_

_To my great Dad, who can be strict but, when I need him, he's always got a massive shoulder to cry on_

_To all the readers who put "Eywa's stepchildren" in their favorites, wrote a review or simply read it._

_To my keypal PK, who pushed me back to write this story

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_

_**Eywa's stepchildren:**_

_**Crossing the shadow line**_

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Prologue

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_In the face of that man, several years, I judged, older than myself, I became aware of what I had left already behind me – my youth._

_(J. Conrad, The Shadow Line)

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_

The main "disease", in Alfred's family, was asthma, but he had been spared by it. And at the moment he was just airsick.

As the _ISV Martin Luther King_ was landing in the landing pad and a group of excited (human) kids was running to welcome the newcomers, a man with dark, curly hair rushed in the hallway, shouting "Exopacks on! Exopacks on!".

The patch on his sleeve identified him as an FBI agent.

He had no exopack, and there didn't seem to be a spare one. As Alfred put on his, he asked himself how did that guy make it without exopack… before noticing the kids he saw out of the window pane didn't wear it.

"Okay, guys" the curly haired man said "We're here. As the ramp opens, just follow me inside. The kids will be quite a bother, just ignore them, sooner or later someone will make them gather somewhere they won't bother us as we unpack"

Alfred stood up and got close to the man.

"Hey, man, I just wanted to say…" he started "Thanks. For calling my name. You know, after I was sacked three years ago"

The man grinned. Alfred noticed his face had been scarred by something. Obviously not something a simple cop could get: it just seemed the man's face had been hit by a certain number of splints and then the skin had been lifted… to do what?

Probably a surgery to the optical nerves, judging the position of the regular scars… he had heard of policemen losing eyesight as some madman threw a bomb at them, but he had never seen what really happened to a victim of that kind of attack before staying for a day at the hospital, undertaking a laser surgery to correct his myopia, and by the way he had not paid attention, as the only thing he had needed at the moment was some rest.

"Well, someone who writes "Hands off Pandora" on a wall is surely a good man if we have to come to terms with the People. You're a good boy, Alfred Locke, and I think you'll have a future here"

"What? You didn't say you're a Locke!" Owen Hawkwood intervened standing up

"So what?" Alfred asked grinning "We both bear surnames of important characters called John. I share my surname with John Locke and you with John Hawkwood"

"I didn't mean that Locke. I meant _David_ Locke. The _worldwide known physicist_!"

"Shut the hell up, Owen" Alfred resolved as the ramp opened "The only thing I have in common with him is that we both _were_ near-sighted"

They started walking down the ramp, as the pack of kids ran to them. No one of them looked old enough to shave (and, in fact, that was pretty impossible given the fact that there had been no human children on Pandora until 2155) but a few of them surely were preteens.

The kid who seemed the oldest, a sturdy, chestnut-haired boy, pointed at Alfred and said "Guys, look, that man's Charlie with black hair!"

"Name's Alfred" Alfred answered getting close to the kid "And you are…?"

"Higgins, Newt Higgins" the boy said in a James Bond-ish stance "Are you a cop or a scientist?"

"Cop"

"Whoa…" Newt said "Me, I'm a junior high student, but I'm also a musician"

"A musician? I wouldn't have said it"

"Oh yeah?" Newt asked showing his hands. On his left hand, the fingernails were very short, and he also had calluses on the tips, while his right hand fingernails were definitely longer. Alfred could easily recognize signs like those as the brand of a guitarist.

"Okay, okay, I believe you" Alfred said grinning "How old are you? Fourteen?"

"Twelve and a half. I'm tall for my age… we all are. You haven't seen Austin then, he's thirteen and he looks fifteen… if you don't hear him speaking!"

"I do know Austin Giles, I've met him once" Alfred replied

"Hang on a sec…" Newt murmured getting closer to him "I've seen you somewhere, sure as Eywa I have…"

"Maybe you know my cousin, if you know his best friend"

"You're Gabriel's cousin?"

"Yeah"

"Gabriel _John Locke_'s cousin?"

"I said you I am. I didn't tell you my full name, and that's Alfred Locke"

Newt grinned.

"By the way, my real name's Newton!" he shouted as Alfred got into the main building "I'll tell your family you're here if you want me to!"

"Okay!" Alfred replied as the air lock door closed

His group was led into a narrow hallway, were they were stopped one by one, and some men in labcoats injected them something in their arms.

"You'll stay sick for a day or two after this" a curly-haired man with specs was saying as he pointed the direction for the main hall "But after that, you'll be able to wander around without exopacks. Understood? Don't worry if you feel just like you got a bad cold. Don't worry"

A kid who looked like a miniature of the curly-haired man (glasses included) was running and looking around, at least until the man didn't order him "Get out of here, Terry!"

"But Dad…" Terry moaned

"We're working here. You could break the glasses if you keep playing around here"

"But Adrian asked me to…"

"What Adrian asked you to do doesn't matter now. Go out and play with the other kids"

"Ooh-kaaay"

As Alfred went further, the hallway led to a larger and higher one. Alfred quickly noticed that even a Na'vi (or a group of them) could have wandered in there without any problems.

As they gathered in the hallway, a ginger-haired teenage girl came from another hallway and made them a sign.

"This way, please!" she shouted.

She could have been no older than thirteen, and Alfred recognized her immediately. She was Helena, his cousin, and that was the first time he wasn't looking at her through a webcam.

The FBI officer was gone, maybe he knew a different path. So, now it was better to follow Helena.

"Hey… hey… Helena? Helena!" he shouted running to her

"Yeah…?" Helena asked turning

"Don't you recognize me?" Alfred said stopping in front of her "It's Alfred!"

Helena looked in his eyes and smiled.

"Are you serious?"

"No, I said you I'm _Alfred_! Get it? I'm Alfred Locke!"

Helena stayed silent for a moment, then she hugged him.

"It's great to see you, Al!" she said

"Yeah, but now we'd better hurry up" another girl, slightly younger than Helena, said coming from the hallway

"What's up, Laura?" Helena asked her friend

"My dad says he needs time to show the newbies the whole base. And, as Michel wants them to be instructed on behavior, they'll need some time in the mess hall"

"Michel! _The_ Michel? Do you mean he's back?"

"Yeah, Newt saw him outside. He swore on Eywa it's him. He could recognize his scars anywhere"

Who knew who that "Michel" was… Alfred still didn't know every man in the spaceship which had taken him there. A three months long journey could have been quite boring, but he had spent most of his time playing Battleships with Owen and two or three more boys of his age.

One thing was sure: if Helena had said he was back, he already had been on Pandora.

The large hallway led into a big hall which was filled with tables and chairs: a canteen. The other men were taking their seats, as Helena and Laura had taken another hallway to go who knew where.

Alfred took a seat next to Owen and put his duffel bag on the ground. The dark-haired FBI man paced back and forth, and, after he had made sure everyone had found a place on the benches, started speaking.

"I want to clarify a thing, before everything else you'd need to know about Pandora: this is not home. Here, the mistakes you make could cost your life.

I wasn't here at the times in which some people were talking about war, but now… we're here to prevent another one.

This place may not be home for you, and the People may not be family, but if you try… no, if you do act with the needed respect, you'll find out this place can become home"

From the hallway Helena and Laura had vanished into, two men and a woman entered the room. One of them seemed to be in his sixties, while the other man and the woman seemed to be quite young, maybe in their early thirties. The boy was dark and curly-haired, and he looked quite tough, while the girl had all the looks of a bookworm, even if she looked pretty.

"Now, there are three important rules you need to know if you want your stay here to be a pleasant one" the policeman continued "Rule number one: don't say anything offensive to the People, to the scientists or to the human kids who were born here. Or to anyone in general, as offensive stuff is offensive for anyone. Rule number two: help each other. And help even the Na'vi if they ask you to. Cooperation, here, is the key. The man you're helping today could save your ass tomorrow, even if he doesn't speak English at all. Rule number three: here we're guests. You may have heard the guest is holy, but you surely have also heard that when you go to Rome, you do as the Romans do. Well we're not in Rome, we're on Pandora, but the matter is the same. A single mistake could cost your life: the forest is hostile against the ones who violate it."

He stayed silent for a moment, looking in the eyes all the men he could.

"I'm sure most of you will do their best. I know it" he said "But now, I'm glad to introduce you the heads of the Avatar Program. Meet Professor Diego Seneca, Doctor Beatrice Martin and Lieutenant Alan Doyle…"

"It's just _Alan_, Michel" the Lieutenant said

"… also known as The Karate Kid!"

* * *

_**Hoo-ray I'm back!**_

_**As I'm writing another story, an Avatar/Harry Potter crossover fanfiction titled "Al Potter and the Curse of Castor" (in Italian, but I'll translate it in English if someone requests me to do it), and I've restarted attending university, I may write slower than last time, but let me know you'll be there supporting me, and I'll write faster (it's no blackmail, I really can write faster if I find out someone's supporting me).**_

_**Get ready for this adventure!**_

_**Volpe1990**_


	2. Back home

Chapter 1

Back home

_(Gabriel's POV)_

"This time I'll win, bro!"

"Are you so sure?"

Gabriel would have turned fourteen in a month, and Peter had been eighteen for a few months already, but they still enjoyed wrestling just like when Gabriel had been twelve and Peter sixteen.

In those last two years, it had been just like if Gabriel had been growing up faster than before, and Peter's growth seemed to have slowed down a lot, if it had not actually stopped. They felt closer to each other: they had started doing some chores together, Peter had started teaching Gabriel how to use a bow, and Gabriel had taught Peter to speak Spanish.

At the actual moment, they were wrestling on the floor of the hut Peter lived in, taking a break every moment to laugh at each other. They weren't blood brothers, but if they had been, they wouldn't have been closer.

There had been times in which Peter had been away, at the Tipani homestead, times in which Gabriel had spent all of his time with his friends, but now Peter had found himself a place at the Omaticaya Hometree.

His decision had been long: he had his mother and grandfather among the Tipani, and the people he had learnt to call father, brother and sister among the Omaticaya. For a period, Gabriel had really feared his brother was going to abandon them.

But now he was there, along with his… well, Da called her "a girlfriend". Maybe because that was the term he had been using at the age of eighteen.

But Peter always had time for his little brother, and Nee'rae had accepted it long before them settling down.

The very Gabriel had been traveling in those days: Rafe'ekan had taken him to other clans, to listen to the stories told in other places, to know different realities. He had learnt that Jake had not been the first avatar driver to defy RDA, nor had been the Tipani warrior Able, or Adrian Annakin's "father" Ryan Lorenz.

It had been a girl. A perfectly average teenage girl, Molly Ossman.

She wasn't a young girl anymore, she had a mate and two children, and she had been really glad to know the situation had been peaceful for years: the clan she had been accepted in, the Tawkami, had had no contact with the humans after a brief encounter ended when Molly's mate had chased away, with Eywa's blessing, RDA from Tawkami territory.

Once he had come home, he had told his friends that story. Helena and Laura had been really pleased hearing that, in spite of the group of boys they had always heard about, the human heroes included a girl, too. Laura's father, who had been listening, had commented that Anthony Ossman, Molly's father, had been a great man, but he had turned crazy in his last years before falling into a coma.

"Why, good people can become bad?" had been six-years-old Michael's question

"Of course they can" had been his older brother's answer "But the good side is that bad people can become good, just like Parker Selfridge"

Tom was thirteen like Gabriel, and he, too, would have turned fourteen in some months. As he was the olo'eyktan's eldest, he would have had a huge responsibility on his shoulders as soon as he would have been considered an adult. In his childhood years, he had been "touchy" and "cunning", now he was growing wise.

In the last months Tom had been always with his father, helping him out during the assemblies or learning how to hunt. Sometimes he complained about that, but he always found some time to stay with his friends. Once he had said that play time ended with childhood, and he had been perfectly right: childhood for him and Gabriel was coming to the close, and playing around all day wasn't fun anymore.

But, in some moments a day, Gabriel still had a great time when his brother tried to playfully beat him up (and Peter won most of the times, as he was bigger and older), and enjoyed those moments. And by the way, as Alan had been teaching him karate (as they could not attend P.E. with the class, Diego had decided that karate could have been a proper physical education class), Gabriel had the technical advantage.

He was about to knock Peter down when someone called (or to say it better, _shouted_) his name.

He stopped and Peter took the chance and pushed him back.

"Drop dead, Helena, I was up to win" Gabriel protested as he recognized his sister's avatar

"You will never guess" Helena said running inside "Max asked me and Laura to lead in the newbies, the people who arrived today… and guess who's with them?"

"_Alfred_?" Gabriel asked

"Him too" Helena answered "But that's not the point, bro!"

"I knew Alfred was coming, he told me via Skype"

"I told you there's not just Alfred!"

"So… who's with him? Charlie? Florence? Both? Edmund?"

"Wrong all four"

"Jimmie? Dan? Marianne?"

"No, you idiot!"

"And who the hell's supposed to come?"

"_Michel_!"

Both Peter and Gabriel stayed silent. They remembered Michel, better known by the humans as Captain Karloff of the FBI. Gabriel even shared some classes with his daughter. He had once been on Pandora, but he had left some months later to look after his family. Why on Pandora was he back?

Yeah, his best friend Jake was there, but that wasn't a good reason.

Maybe they needed someone like him to lead the police operations. Maybe…

Anyway, Gabriel was glad Michel was back: he was a good man, and he had been friendly to everyone during his first stay on Pandora. If a man like him was leading the policemen, that meant the People would have accepted better the team of humans still working at the human colony previously called Hell's Gate.

"Are you sure it's him?"

"Yeah, it's him. Newt saw him first, then Laura and I saw him in the mess hall. And I ran here to tell you and Tom. By the way, do you know where he is?"

_("Someone" __'s POV)_

The young warrior stepped carefully on the mossy ground.

Every step could have been his ruin. If the Quidditch man's soldiers heard him, he would have been killed before he could have said "Go away".

He clutched his fighting staff in his hands. Behind him, his elder brother, the first in the olo'eyktan succession line, kept his bow at the ready.

"**What if we meet Ryan**?" the warrior muttered

"**Then he'll help us. We need his help this time to drive Quidditch away… he's got his metal bow**"

They restarted walking, very carefully, to the meeting point with the dreamwalker someone called Ryan. The boy was a few years older than the warrior, three or four as he could remember. His brother was even older: he had been eight when he was born.

They had a sister, too: a little two-years-old, still too young to fight or to do anything else but squeaking and fussing.

"Hang on, Tom… but Dad says that's called gun! And… you said Quidditch, but Helena said it's Quaritch, not Quidditch!"

Tom grumbled and dropped his bow.

"Mike, how do I have to say you that if I have to play with you, we have to play by my rules? You ain't supposed to speak English, at least not if we ain't talking to Adrian. And if I decide the enemy is called Quidditch, then he's called Quidditch. At least he's a laugh"

"But…" Michael peeped in a protesting tone, clutching the stick he was using as a "weapon"

"Hey, who's fourteen here?"

"_You_? Not yet. You're thirteen"

"Yeah, and you're six. So who's older?"

"But it doesn't matter…"

"Who's older?"

"_You_" Michael said, lowering his head "But I decided to play!"

"And I was dragged in, so I suppose I should decide at least something… listen, if you aren't happy, play with Sylwanin"

"But she's a _girl_! I can't play with a girl, she'd make me…"

Michael didn't speak out, but the only thought of playing with a girl gave him the creeps. At least, playing with such a small girl. She would have forced him to play with her rag doll, and that was… that was… well, his friend Janus would have taken the Mickey out of him… and that was what Uncle Norm called a pun.

"Well I do sometimes play soccer with Helena and Laura, and they're definitely girls. Anything wrong?"

"Yeah, but they play soccer. Sylwanin doesn't"

"And so you seem to have no problems playing soccer. So why didn't you ask me to?"

"I wanted to act in one of Gabriel's stories!"

_(Tom's POV)_

Gabriel, also known as Tom's best friend, was the storyteller's apprentice, and now he had left to travel with his master, many of the kids missed him and his stories.

Actually, even Tom didn't know where was he gone. And when would he have come back. And actually, as he spent most of his time helping Dad, he could not have known whether he was back or not.

Well, he could always have gone and seen him at the colony buildings, but he always slept when he was in there.

Still two more months and Gabriel would have left that building forever.

His sister Helena would have taken more time: she was going to wait for Austin. Michael just kept on saying that "those two were going to mate", often in a mocking tone. Before Dad smacked him on the back of the neck to make him shut up.

"Well, next time ask your friends then" Tom said turning

Just as two kids of his age arrived rushing in the clearing he was playing with his brother.

"Gabriel, you're back!" Michael shouted to the boy

The other kid, a girl commonly known as Helena, hugged Michael to greet him, then turned to Tom in a serious tone.

"That's not an important piece of news" she said "Gabriel's not the only one who's back"

"Who's back, then?" Michael asked

Tom took a minute to think about it. Who could be back? Florence? Charlie? No, not Charlie, he was an orphan and he had a little brother, so he could not leave him alone… and Florence in that period was literally stuck to Charlie.

"Is he or she someone I know?" he asked

"Definitely" Helena answered

"Aww, Helena, shut up with the damn quiz show!" Gabriel cut her "It's _Michel_. Helena and Laura saw him coming"

_Michel_ was _back_? _The_ Michel? Dad's lifelong best friend?

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I haven't seen him but I trust _Laura_"

"Yeah, and who am I?" Helena asked her brother

"_You_?" Gabriel asked chuckling

"Yes, me"

"You're my sis. That's all. And I don't trust you, by the way"

"_Gabriel_…"

"Yeeeah?"

"Tom, please, take him away before I kick his ass" Helena resolved

"Okay, Mike, stay with Helena, and if you meet Dad tell him Michel is back" Tom said pushing Gabriel forward "Bye!"

He started running, hoping for Gabriel to follow him quickly, as, even if Dad just said he was growing wise, leaving Michael with such a witch wasn't the wisest thing ever. Not for Michael, obviously, but for him: Helena had a soft spot for small children, but she had no soft spot at all for bigger brothers who dropped off small children on her.

Well except maybe for Austin. But that wasn't the right moment to think about the beanpole. Now he (and Gabriel) just had to run fast enough to get far from Helena. She would not have been able to run because of Michael, so if they got enough far in a little time, they would have been perfectly safe.

He remembered the first time he and Gabriel had had such a rush together, the very day he had met Michel, and he and Gabriel had tried, successfully, to lead Michel to Dad and make them be friends again. Now they were just running from Gabriel's witch-sister.

But Michel was back.

This time Gabriel didn't complain about blisters, nor his aching feet.

Almost three years had passed, and many things had changed. But, in some way, Tom thought everything was just coming back to balance.

The road to the colony was always the same path, also because all the tracks of humans and Na'vi going back and forth had literally highlighted it.

Diego had started calling it "The Road" with the big R, and someone else like Alan, Beatrice or David had quickly followed his example.

The colony was always the same too, but in three years some of the buildings had been destroyed and plants had covered some walls. The effect was quite strange, but some people liked it.

A small group of people was exploring the place, guided by Alan in his dreamwalker body. Gabriel waved to one of them, a dark-haired man in his middle twenties.

Another boy tried to say something, but Gabriel's acquaintance quickly hissed "_Oween_!"

"Hello, boys" Alan said grinning "Are you paying a visit?"

"No, we heard someone's back" Tom replied

"You mean Michel? You'll have to wait, he's inside talking to Diego, and there's no way he's getting out unless your very dad comes here, Tom"

"Adults… as usual!" Tom moaned sitting down "Sometimes I wish I could stay thirteen forever"

"That was what I thought too" the dark-haired young man said stepping forward "But once I turned fourteen my dad bought me a motorbike, so…"

"Alfred, there are no motorbikes here" Gabriel almost scolded him

"Oh, yeah…" the man called Alfred grinned shyly "No motorbikes, that's right"

"By the way, Tom… the stupid in front of you is my cousin Alfred. Alfred, this is my best friend Thomas"

"You still have to introduce me _your brother_" said Alfred to Gabriel shaking Tom's hand the best he could

"Who, Peter?" Gabriel asked with a grin "He stayed at the village, and I don't think the Road is safe for _you_… at least until…"

"Not safe for me, huh?" Alfred replied "Just wait until you get out of that avatar…"

"Just wait until I turn fourteen…"

"Ohh, I'm shaking with fear!"

"And you should be" Tom smirked "He's not up to get out when he does"

"Huh…" Alfred just said "All right. Well, boys, I'm going off with Alan. I'd better know the base as I knew home, and… by the way, Gabriel, Grandma kisses you and your siblings"

"Ohh-kay" Gabriel said getting away

"You have a grandmother?" Tom asked him surprised. He had never heard about her.

"Yeah, she's called Joan Wesley and she's a writer" Gabriel explained "She wrote a bunch of children's books, all about Pandora"

"Are you kidding?"

"Of course I'm not. And by the way, who do you think I took after?"

"That's different, you're a storyteller"

"It's not _that_ different"

"Well it is. When you have a story in your mind, you have to tell it with your own voice…"

"And that's why someone invented movies, too. Now I think about it, all of our story would be a pretty good movie. I mean, your father defying the bad colonel to live his own life and have his own family, and all the sub-plots, and the places, the stories and… I mean, if someone made a movie like this one hundred and sixty years ago*, I bet the situation on Earth would not have been like it is! I mean, it would have been loads better than that Toilet Saga about sparkly vampires!"

"Hey, you're actually despising a writer!" Tom said chuckling

"Do you call _her_ writer? Thomas, _please_!"

"Why, what was she?"

"I'd better not to say it, _amigo_"

"Anyway you're a storyteller and that's all" Tom resolved "So do your job"

"Yeah, but you _do_ like Harry Potter…"

"I don't!"

"You do!"

"I don't! How could I like it if I share the name of the bad guy?"

"Well he doesn't like his name. You do. So you're radically different"

"Hey guys!" Newton shouted getting out of a building "Have you seen the newbies, Gabriel? There's your cousin with 'em!"

In two years, Newton Higgins had radically changed. No one could have said he had been fat in his earlier years: he was as thin as any other human kid on the planet now, his hair had grown long just like a hippie's, and he had given up wearing taken in uniforms since he was thin enough to wear medium-sized teenager's clothes (as every human kid born on Pandora, he was tall for his age).

He had been literally afraid of the Na'vi until he had been ten (and he had completely changed his mind at that age) but, even if he now admired the People, he had refused to become an avatar driver even if his younger sister Laura had accepted.

"Yeah, I've seen Alfred" Gabriel answered.

"Oh, and Charlie tried to call you via Skype, but you, as usual…"

"What does he want?" Tom intervened

"Did they find Jim?"

James David "Jim" Martin was one of Gabriel's seven cousins, and one of the closest to his age, as he was nearly fifteen. He had been gone from San Francisco, the city he lived in with his brother Charlie and his brother's girlfriend Florence, for about three months, with two boys, his cousin Danny Locke and his best friend Jacob Stephen, who had come to visit him for a weekend. No one had found them yet.

"No, but Charlie has an idea of where to look for" Newt said juggling with his mouth organ

"And he writes to me just for that?" Gabriel asked "It isn't his thing!"

"Yeah, because he thinks Jim could be here, on Pandora" Newt said without stopping throwing the mouth organ in the air

"Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not. Also because he's not been the only one who disappeared exactly four days before the _Martin Luther King _took off" Newt said "_Andreas_. Andreas Schopenhauer disappeared from San Francisco too. And two more kids, but they were living on their own, the mother's dead and the father hasn't been contacted. Now think about it, Gabe… who do you know whose mother died not so far ago, who would be able to live on their own together and whose father could not be contacted at all in those three months?"

"_Don't call me Gabe!_"

"Yeah, but think about it. Joe's a maintenance operator, he knows everything about ships. They lost their mother. They had only their father, their father has come here and…"

"You mean _Joseph and Elizabeth_? Were they gone too?" Tom almost shouted

"Yeah, but surely not from San Francisco" Newt chuckled "Anyway, Charlie's advice was to check the shuttle. We'd better follow it"

"Are we sure it's not a prank of his?" Tom muttered to Gabriel as Newt ran to the shuttle

"Well, if it is, we're a Na'vi and a dreamwalker against a stilt walker. Who wins? Us of course!"

"Let's go then!"

_(Joseph's POV)_

Even if the door leading out was sealed – they had no exopacks – Joseph kept on watching it just like if it was up to open.

The only one who would have survived was Andreas, who was born on Pandora (even if Joseph didn't know the exact circumstances) and had moved to San Francisco when he was nine. Now he was nearly twelve and he had wanted to go back to the place he considered home.

"San Francisco sucks" he just kept on saying, and he often argued with Jacob Stephen (whom nearly everyone called Steve) who said cities in Great Britain were far worse.

Jacob Stephen, fourteen and a half years old, had grown up in an orphanage, in Kingsbridge, GB, even if he had never lost his parents. His mum and dad just owned the place. He had met there his very best (if not only) friend, James David Martin, and when James had moved to San Francisco with his brother Charles, Jacob had done his best to go and see him as soon as he could.

The other boy in the room, a red-haired, well-built fourteen-years-old, was James's cousin Daniel Locke, always complaining about his good-for-nothing name.

"Ssh, listen!" Andreas intervened "I think someone's here!"

"From good to better" Daniel complained "Now they'll find us and kick our asses back to Earth"

"_I don't think so_" Andreas replied with a sly grin "I recognize the voice, it's Newt Higgins"

"And so?" Jacob Stephen asked

"Newt Higgins is my best friend" Andreas explained in a reproaching tone "He'll cooperate"

As he was talking, the door opened with a hiss, but no poisonous air came from the outside.

A brown-haired muscular kid was standing in the doorway, holding a rucksack.

"Got the exopacks" he explained gesturing to Joseph "Andreas! It's just great to see you!"

"Why do I have the feeling he knew everything?" another voice asked as a peculiar Na'vi boy knelt to see through the opening

"Because you're right" another voice answered

"Why did you take _them_ too?" Andreas asked the human boy as he threw his rucksack on the ground

"Because he wanted me to activate the pressurizing device" the second Na'vi kid said as he stooped to cross the doorway "Oh, _damn_, worse than I thought. Charlie sent me no message, did he, Newt?"

The rucksack boy blushed and took some exopacks out of his bag, but he stayed silent.

"Wait… Gabriel?" Daniel asked

"Yeah, Dan, it's me. By the way, hello Liz and… Jim, I think you forgot your sister's here"

"I didn't" James said putting his exopack on

"So why are you here?"

"Well… it's my own business, Gabriel! Shut the hell up!"

"Yeah, yeah, but what are we going to do with them now?" the first Na'vi boy who had spoken asked crossing the doorway "I mean, they're fugitives. We can't just harbor them!"

He looked familiar to Joseph, even if he had never seen him before: he had seen that pose and that expression in some photos Dad kept at home.

"And you would be…?" Daniel asked in a challenging tone

"Me? I'm Thomas, and you'd better remember it, bec…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'm David Locke's nephew" Daniel said in a challenging tone

"Prove it!" the boy called Tom said scowling at him

"Okay. _Gabriel_?"

"Yeah, he's my cousin. _Alas_" Gabriel answered "And the scarhead is too"

"Look who's talking!" James protested walking straight to him

"Do you see any scar?" Gabriel asked James

"That ain't your real face"

"In two months, it will. So please shut the hell up and follow me, if you don't want your ass to be kicked back home"

_*** **__**I think you understood what Gabriel meant ;P**_


End file.
